


The Glass Portrait

by Keiko Kirin (sakana17)



Category: Master and Commander - O'Brian
Genre: Age of Sail, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-01-28
Updated: 2004-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-03 20:04:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakana17/pseuds/Keiko%20Kirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Warning: Contains spoilers for the entire book series.</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Glass Portrait

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Contains spoilers for the entire book series.

Milport House was strangely quiet as Fanny Hartlepool returned from her walk along the stream. It was a beautiful spring morning: the sun a glorious yellow, dew yet on the lawn and the demure roses under the windows, and a crisp, cool breeze. She went upstairs to check on Jenny the maid, and found her rocking Baby Cecilia. Sophia sat on the floor surrounded by open picture books and was tracing with her chubby little fingers a scene of a large black dog. Fanny was about to ask Sophia where her sisters and brother were when through the open window she heard George's high, boyish voice call out: "Beat to quarters!" She went to the window and looked down on the scene.

The lawn behind Milport House was dotted with round, tenacious shrubs through which a gravel walk snaked and branched out in a Y. One leg led down to the reed-filled pond, and the other led to the observatory, a small, octagonal building set on a little lump of a hill. On the walk directly below the window was George, Fanny's oldest child and only son, standing and raising an old wooden toy sword. Grouped around three shrubs were the rest of his sisters: Anne and Elizabeth, Emily by herself, and Jane, who was sitting on the shoulders of a broad, grey-haired man crouched behind the shrub. Jane's trilling squeals of delight floated up to the window.

George waved his sword and marched up to Emily and said in a loud, clear voice, "Mr Emily! Luff and touch her!" Emily curtseyed and raised a knuckle to her brow, then turned and started pulling on branches of the shrub. Jane screamed with laughter, causing George to turn and shout, "'Vast your laughing, you lubberly swab," which only had the effect of making Jane squeal again, joined by a deep, melodious chuckle from her grandfather, the man holding her.

Anne and Elizabeth had by now fallen into giggling, and when George marched over to them and ordered them to "fire as she bears", they were capable only of squeaking out in unison, "Aye aye, sir!" George waved his sword over his head and marched between the shrubs to the supposed quarterdeck and took the supposed helm. At this point in the game he would have been the model of an officer in complete command had not Admiral Aubrey called out, "Boarders away!" This sent Anne, Elizabeth and Emily charging at their brother, who was obliged to run off the gravel walk and into the supposed ocean to escape. The admiral ran after them, Jane riding his shoulders while he held her feet.

A tug on Fanny's skirts was Sophia, wanting to watch the game. Fanny bent down and lifted her to the window seat, and they sat and watched together while Baby Cecilia slept and Jenny hummed lullabies while she knitted. Fanny watched with a mother's pleasure at her children's health and spirit, a mother's concern for their white petticoats and stockings, and a daughter's deep and awed love for her father, still so vital and robust, although he shortly gave up the pursuit of George and took Jane on a slower, more leisurely ride down to the reed pond.

He was carrying her still when Fanny met them downstairs in the breakfast room, and she noted how he gasped for breath after bending over to let Jane slide to the floor. He sat heavily on a chair, smiling, and his eyes were an undimmed brilliant flash of blue so well remembered from her childhood that Fanny felt a pang of being in the past.

For many years, Fanny had dwelt upon the memories of his absences: the months (or years) of silence; her mother's tears which had transformed into brief, bitter words and finally grave warnings against marrying a naval officer -- although her mother would never, ever say anything against Captain Aubrey, no indeed. But Sophie Aubrey's daughters were not dullards. They had witnessed her life of desperately poor, lonely, enclosed intervals of solely female company sporadically broken by the arrival of _him_. The great man, a stranger, forbidding and scary when Fanny and her twin sister Charlotte were very tiny, then becoming a person of great curiosity -- a benevolent visitor who brought with him such fascinating friends: old sailors with their long braids, coarse talk, and tobacco pipes. And for a while, for several years, he had remained the benevolent visitor, more of an uncle than a father, and Fanny and Charlotte had retained the fiercest loyalty to him which somehow became a resentment of their mother and, more obscurely, of their younger brother George. When and how it had all changed Fanny could not clearly remember. By the time she and Charlotte were forbidden to fish and swim with their young male friends, Fanny had already lost most of her fascination and loyalty for the captain -- now Admiral Aubrey. He was not a great presence in her life: not moreso than her girl friends, her dresses, her studies, and her dreams of attending London balls and dancing with the dashing young officers whom only a year ago had been looked upon as more brothers, brought to the house by Father, of little interest or remark.

And now it had changed again, coming full circle, Fanny reflected as she watched her father with great love and tenderness. She brought him his coffee, and he kissed her cheek and squeezed her hand, saying, "I do wish you did not have to leave today. I expect the doctor any minute now, and he will be cruelly disappointed to have missed you and the children."

"Yes, Papa," Fanny said, knowing that this was not a complete truth. To be sure, Doctor Maturin, her father's particular friend, had always been wonderfully kind to her and had even delivered Anne. But as he had gotten older, and Fanny had been blessed with more children, she had sensed that the doctor was not particularly at ease with them, and did not share his friend's grandfatherly love and joy. The incident three years earlier with George, Emily, and the doctor's bottled vampire bat had done nothing to strengthen their relations, and although Fanny had great affection for the doctor -- known to her since childhood -- she was not displeased to avoid a meeting. For she knew as well as her father did that the doctor was always late, and if Admiral Aubrey expected him "any minute now," that most likely meant he would turn up tomorrow afternoon.

Besides, she was anxious to begin the next stage of her family life. The house in Sussex was finally complete, and here she and the children would reunite with her husband. Henry was a barrister whose great success and talent had led to material comforts enough for a wife and seven children, and to a new estate.

"You should bring the doctor with you when you visit, Papa," Fanny said, raising her voice as she went to the window to watch the carriages which Henry had sent arrive. "There is plenty of room, and he is most welcome."

"Yes, yes," said Admiral Aubrey distractedly.

Fanny clasped her hands around his neck and pressed her cheek to his temple. "You will not wait so long to visit. Promise me," she said into his good ear. "Write to me, and Henry will send a carriage directly. You will love our new gardens."

Her father patted her hand and smiled at her. The peaceful moment was broken by George and the girls rushing in through the French windows, all yelling that the carriages had arrived.

\-----

In fact, Mrs Hartlepool and her children missed Doctor Maturin's arrival by less than an hour. Their carriages had passed his covered coach on the road, unknowing, since at the time Stephen had been fast asleep behind the coach's curtain. Now he walked up the path from the road, sent his loyal longtime servant Padeen to get Mrs Stannage, and carried his own travelling bag and walking stick into Milport House. He found Jack in the breakfast room, dozing in a chair. A glance at the open windows and the trampled lawn outside told him Fanny's children had been about, and the complete silence of the house -- broken only by the ticking of the ship's clock in the hallway -- told him that the Hartlepools had already departed. He was sorry to have missed Fanny, less so to have missed the children, and went upstairs to leave his bag and change out of his travelling clothes. When he came downstairs, Jack was still asleep, and Stephen sat and sipped a cup of cold coffee and regarded his friend in the dazzling late morning light.

With his eyes closed, hiding the brilliant, lively blue, Jack looked like an ordinary old gentleman, Stephen reflected with a sigh. The reddish colour of his complexion had long since faded, and his scars were now almost indistinguishable from his wrinkles. His long side whiskers -- longer and curlier than he had ever worn when younger -- helped to narrow the shape of his jowls. Quite apart from the complete whiteish grey of his hair, the loss of Jack's queue was the change which Stephen had never quite adjusted to -- had never accepted into his mind's vision of Jack. Now his hair hung only to his neck, and was neatly brushed back, the side whiskers a darker grey than the rest.

Unchanged in this entire picture of change was his frame -- still broad -- and his shape -- still big, although indeed less firm than it had been -- and his lips -- still the same ridiculously pretty curves. These Stephen now kissed very softly, leaning over Jack's chair. Jack opened his eyes -- also unchanged -- and cried out, "Oh, there you are, Stephen."

Stephen smiled. "Here I am," he agreed, filled with an irrational warmth of pleasure, as if he had not been greeted by these words so many thousands of times before.

Jack sat up and straightened his waistcoat. Years of habit guided his hands to tug it lower than it would naturally go: he had worn his favorite longer cut of waistcoat, old-fashioned even when Stephen had first met him, his entire naval career. He had finally changed into a more fashionable cut, exchanging his breeches for long trousers at the same time, but it was clear that his body had never fully adjusted to these innovations.

"Fanny and the children have already left," Jack said. "I am so sorry you missed them, Stephen. Fanny sends her love, and says you may call on them in Sussex at any time."

He said this with perfect blandness. Stephen, noticing the stack of letters on the sideboard, picked one up, adjusted his spectacles, brought the paper closer, then farther, and finally returned it to the stack. Wiping his spectacles with his handkerchief, he said, "Are we to journey to Sussex then?"

"I suppose we must," Jack said in a low tone. He toyed with his empty coffee cup.

"Of course we must," said Stephen. "If you wish it," he added. For himself, he cared little either way, but he knew that Jack doted on his grandchildren. They had both been mostly absent fathers, out of necessity, and although this had not been without some pain and regret, it was not until Brigid and Jack's children were fully grown that the loss of years had seemed to affect them. One effect was Jack's devoted grandfathering, so far from his rather stilted and uncertain fathering that Stephen had sometimes caught a hint of jealousy in Fanny, albeit utterly blended with tender happiness.

"You are never still brooding over your argument with Mr Hartlepool," Stephen said, watching Jack tap the tablecloth with the bottom of the cup.

Last year Jack had disagreed with Fanny's husband over George's future career -- Jack, of course, had insisted that nothing could be greater or more fitting than for George to join the Royal Navy; despite the many changes in the service -- changes over which Jack himself muttered -- Jack had never shaken his deeply held conviction that the finest thing a man could do was to go to sea. The worst of their argument was not that Jack had lost, but that Hartlepool had never seemed particularly engaged in it. He had answered with a lawyer's coolness and logic and with a certain detachment, as if it were not his own son he was discussing. It had not been a sign of indifference toward his son, however; Stephen, who had witnessed the argument in this very room, had recognised Hartlepool's coolness: Hartlepool did not take Jack seriously, viewed him as a old man out of step with his environment and with the times, did not think Jack's opinions worth creditting. Stephen had always been neutral on the subject of Henry Hartlepool -- Fanny loved him and was happy, and that was all that mattered -- until that day. Then his heart had closed to the man, and although he had not felt the keen sadness and pain Jack had felt, he could never love Fanny's husband.

His observation to Jack went unanswered -- Stephen had not spoken up and it was likely that Jack hadn't heard him -- and Stephen let the subject drop. He heard Padeen and Mrs Stannage coming in through the kitchen. He stood behind Jack's chair and patted his shoulder and said into Jack's good ear, "We shall have our dinner shortly, and then I will show you my prize." This cheered Jack into a smile, and he patted Stephen's hand.

After their dinner, they walked on the lawn and Stephen smoked his cheroot while Jack opened the morning's post. They walked down to the reed pond and sat on an old fallen log they used for a bench. Stephen watched for birds, and Jack read his letters. "Oh!" he said, opening one. "It is from Charlotte." He read in silence -- a somewhat anxious, agitated silence -- for a few moments, then said, "She invites us to visit. Well, well, that's two daughters inviting us in one day. Perhaps the next will be from Brigid, ha ha."

At the mention of Brigid's name, Stephen felt a sad, accustomed longing. He had not seen his daughter in several years, and she was not a reliable, steady correspondent. "I doubt the good sisters of the Holy Cross in Killareen accept male visitors, my dear. Unless we disguise ourselves as priests..." Stephen added with a sly look at Jack, who did not attend. "Please to tell me what dear Charlotte says," he requested in a louder voice.

Jack read the letter closely. "She is doing very well. She sends her love. She says for me to tell you that there are alpacas, any number of alpacas, roaming about the estate. She tells us to board the next ship without the loss of a minute and come see her -- ha ha, sweet thing, she has underscored it, do you see? 'Without the loss of a minute, Admiral Aubrey', she writes. Lord, what a hand she has, though! As sorry a hand as mine. Chicken-scratches ain't in it. There is something here about the weather, no doubt. And coffee... She wants us to send her coffee? Why the devil, when she is surrounded by the stuff...? No, no, I have it wrong, you see. She has sent _us_ some coffee by a merchantman. Very handsome of her, don't you think? Sweet thing," he said fondly, holding the letter up.

While Jack read the letter again in silence, Stephen finished his cheroot and reflected on Charlotte, the twin who had inherited more of her father's blood, and possibly some drops of that of her mother's cousin, Diana. For at eighteen Charlotte had eloped to marry a naval lieutenant named Parkins, a pale, moist young man the admiral had never met, and six months later she had given birth to William, Jack's first grandchild. For a year the penniless family had lived at Woolcombe with Sophie: an unhappy, stormy year capped by misery when poor William died of fever. A few months after his burial Charlotte had run off with another naval officer, and Admiral Aubrey had returned home to find his wife feeding and housing his cuckolded son-in-law. No one knew where Charlotte had gone, so the best Jack could do was to use his influence and place Parkins on a ship: send him off to sea where, with the blessing, he found some measure of peace.

For the last five years Charlotte had been living on an estate in Patagonia with a widower named Don Martínez Flores: by all accounts, a very wealthy, very generous landowner and local patrician who was deliriously in love with Charlotte, despite or because of her interesting past, and treated her handsomely. If Don Martínez Flores had a fault, at least in Jack's eyes, it was that he was only seven years younger than Jack. There was also the mystery of why he and Charlotte had not wed, for Charlotte had become the widow of poor Parkins just before she met Martínez Flores, but Stephen had always suspected that this was Charlotte's choice. If they had learned something in the past thirteen years, it was that Charlotte was set on doing things to her own liking.

And indeed, Stephen (and Jack, he was certain) could not find it in his heart to condemn Charlotte, especially since she had settled down in Patagonia and begun her irregular correspondence by post. She was quite happy -- the only shade in her life was the chance of never seeing her father again. Stephen hoped, and Jack hoped, that she would return to England before that chance became more likely, but for the moment, they had received another invitation to sail for the Argentine.

"Sure, I would not mind seeing an alpaca again," Stephen said.

Jack was silent, and opened the next letter, which was very short. Without reading it to Stephen he folded it and tucked it under the others. By now Stephen had come to recognise these shorter notes: heartfelt yet perfunctory notices addressed to 'dear Admiral Aubrey', regretting to inform him of the death of one of his old friends and colleagues, usually written in the elegant hand of a grieving daughter or sister or son. At first Stephen had been surprised to see Jack, who had witnessed the immediate deaths of innumerable friends, react to these notes with an outward, severe melancholia. As years passed, however, Jack now reacted with no more outward appearance than he ever had in the middle of battle, when he had had to shove the body of a man he knew over the side or had been spattered with the blood of the man standing next to him. Even so, Stephen placed his hand over Jack's and squeezed it gently, and Jack patted his hand in return.

Jack held up the final letter, still folded and sealed. "This one is for you," he said, handing it to Stephen. "It is from Christine Wood."

Stephen opened the letter and looked at the wonderfully neat and compact hand, but he could not make out more than the date without changing to his thicker spectacles, so he folded it again and tucked it into his waistcoat. They sat in silence under the afternoon sun, watching the light ripple in the pond. Jack read Charlotte's letter again, parts of it aloud, declared with some satisfaction that it was a very fine letter, then turned to Stephen and asked, "But what was your prize, my dear?"

"Oh, for all love, I had forgotten!" cried Stephen, stirred out of memories of Africa, of pale naked flesh in the moonlight, of lions and fantastical birds. He stood and took Jack's hand, helping him from the log. "It is the most wondrous thing! Come now, crack on."

Stephen's prize, carefully unwrapped from a velvet cloth taken from his travelling case, was a new type of heliogravure developed by a Frenchman named Daguerre. He presented the glass plate to Jack, who stared at it for some moments before remarking, "Why, Stephen, this is you!"

Stephen smiled triumphantly. "It is. You see, this trip to the Académie des Sciences was not entirely without note, was not entirely without some benefit. For I met the charming Monsieur Bayard and another man whose lack of charm was more than made up by his scientific brilliance, a Monsieur Daguerre. And they humoured me to become a subject while they demonstrated to some other learned gentlemen this process they call the 'daguerréotype'. Is this not the wonder of the age?" said Stephen, carefully taking the plate from Jack's fingers before he smudged it too much. "Is this not the most startling discovery you can imagine? For think of it, dear: with this, the explorer can bring across the world those rare finds too large to carry, and display them to all with perfect, scientific clarity, undamaged by artistic whimsy. And there are experiments underway already to capture the interior of the human body in a glass plate, in such perfect detail -- a prize indeed for the medical man!" Stephen held the daguerréotype out with satisfaction. 

"It is a very uncommon wondrous thing," said Jack. "Even if it is the invention of some Frenchman."

Stephen smiled. "Ah, I should have told you directly, brother: an Englishman is working on a similar process, one which may indeed prove superior for it is said it does not need to be fixed onto glass. Many of the learned gentlemen were murmuring his name with approval -- Talbot, I believe -- and Monsieur Bayard said he would be pleased to write me a letter of introduction."

Jack touched the plate with his fingertips and smiled softly. "It is better than a miniature or silhouette. Would be a pretty thing at sea, to keep one's sweet-heart by your side." He leaned closer, squinting at it. "An uncommon likeness, to be sure. I can see the bread crumbs on your cravat."

Stephen frowned and held the glass closer, squinting. He had dined with the distinguished monsieurs, but he had not realised he had left evidence on his clothes. He could not see the crumbs, however, so he carefully returned the plate to its velvet wrapping. Jack picked it up, unwrapped it for another look, then covered it again and kissed Stephen's cheek. "It will go on the mantel, with our other prizes." These consisted of a narwhal tusk, a cockade-shaped diamond pendant, Jack's Nile medal on its brittle, faded ribbon, and a highly polished brass presentation cup from the Royal College of Surgeons. Jack placed the daguerréotype in the centre, arranging it just so, while Stephen watched him appreciatively and sipped a fine claret, reflecting on how the small display of prizes nevertheless said much about their intertwined lives.

\-----

The next day they left for Woolcombe to honour George Aubrey's invitation. George was now Lieutenant Aubrey, soon to be Captain, or so his father sincerely hoped. On a whim, Jack took Stephen's daguerréotype with him, tucking it into his pocket-book. George had not shown much interest in scientific matters -- or mathematical ones, to Jack's disappointment -- but he did appreciate new inventions.

Their coach arrived early, and they were met by Henrietta, George's young wife, who took their hands and beamed at them and led them to the great parlour. There they sat with the young misses Fanshaw, neighbors of Woolcombe, and a dreary parson whom Jack thought of as very old before he reflected that Stephen and he were the oldest men in the house. Not so long ago, he thought, really not so very long ago, the misses Fanshaw would have been looking at him with a brightness in their eyes and would have blushed most charmingly when he smiled at them. Now they simply returned his smile with an unblushing polite kindness, and he contented himself by watching their pale, pearl-skinned bosoms rise and lower as they breathed.

The final guests arrived: Henrietta's cousins -- two dark-haired unmarried ladies around Henrietta's age who viewed her with barely disguised envy -- and Captain Cunningham, a Marine and George's dear friend. Jack found himself and Stephen escorting the cousins in to dinner while one of the misses Fanshaw latched onto the handsome Cunningham as if her life depended upon it and her sister graciously accepted the arm of the parson with an unmoving, polite smile.

The talk at dinner was almost all about India. George had met Henrietta there three years ago, had brought her back to England and married her a little over a year ago. Jack's impression of her had wavered little since their first meeting. In his day, back in '04 -- or was it '05? -- India had been full of girls of this type: flitty, silly little things looking for husbands. This dinner, only the second he had been invited to since the wedding, had the appearance of Henrietta presenting her success to her cousins and the misses Fanshaw. At any moment, Jack expected her to present the unmarried women with a schedule of ships bound for Bombay.

However, Henrietta had not reckoned on Stephen, Jack thought with a private smile. It had been apparent from their introduction that Henrietta had not known what to make of this dark, foreign doctor, her father-in-law's particular friend. George had introduced him as an old friend, which was perfectly true, but in Henrietta's previous social world, she had never encountered old friends like Stephen Maturin. And now, Jack observed, she was becoming a little put out by him, since Stephen had several long, interesting tales of India -- some embellished and some not strictly truthful in the details -- which entertained the guests far more than Henrietta's somewhat flat, remote, gossipy anecdotes.

Stephen's description of a Bengal tiger inspired Captain Cunningham to recount his own encounter with a tiger, and now the conversation was flowing quite out of control of Henrietta. Jack watched her with a mixture of satisfaction and pity. He thought her a possessive, small-minded girl who relied on her beauty and not her wits; and yet she was probably not aware of how obvious she was. Her pleasure at her marriage was real enough. He doubted that she intended to hurt anyone else with it.

He turned his attention to George and wondered if his son was happy. Ever since his son was born, all Jack had wanted for him was happiness. For Jack, this was no great riddle: the sea, the naval life, serving in His Majesty's -- pardon, Her Majesty's -- Royal Navy would provide happiness. So he had arranged for George to go to sea at a very young age, and trusted that the rest would happen as a matter of course.

Now, however, Jack could observe and reflect. Not with the same keen sense, felt some years ago, of needing to know if he had been a good father -- he was satisfied that he had done his best, and if he had not been a very good father, at least he had not been a very rotten one. Instead he reflected with a somewhat neutral sense of curiosity. He had no great faith in Henrietta or in this marriage, but it was George's life, not his, and he was curious to know if George would make the best of it. He had realised late in life how much stronger the girls were -- indeed, most women he had known -- and trusted their happiness in the lives they had chosen. Even Charlotte's, the creature, as Stephen would say. But George was his father's son, although perhaps with enough of Sophie's blood in him to give him more stability on land and a better head for money.

The thought of Sophie filled him with warm memory and a deep, ancient ache. He took a sip of wine and watched Stephen, who was surreptitiously making bread pills, a habit he had developed long ago during dull gunroom and captain's dinners.

It was not long after Charlotte had abandoned her husband and Jack had found Parkins a commission that Sophie had fallen ill. Jack took no more commissions and stayed with her in the type of marriage -- a husband forever by her side -- which Sophie had always desired and which he had never considered, for it had been impossible for him to live without the sea. Mrs Williams, Sophie's mother, had suffered for years from a long illness with many bouts of surprising health and vitality. Jack had expected the same of his dear, strong Sophie. Instead, the fever took her quickly, after only a few months.

Stephen had been there at the end. He had been Sophie's physician, off and on, when not travelling with her husband. And looking back, Jack was not sure what would have become of him had Stephen not been there. He could barely remember the months immediately following the burial. He lived in London for a while, then in Bath. He dimly recalled meeting people he knew and accepting their sympathy, but it was as if from a dream. He had never felt such pain and grief and unsettled confusion of spirit. Only Stephen's constant presence had kept him from walking aimlessly across the countryside and into the sea itself.

He remembered waking up, however. By then, Jack had moved into Milport House, leaving Woolcombe for George. Stephen had found a housekeeper and manservant for him, for Stephen still travelled much, though not as far as they had travelled together in their youth. And one day Jack had woken up in this comfortable house which was his, and looked out at the lawns which were his, and was served a fine breakfast. He had sailed into a new harbour, one which had been choppy and foggy, with the glass constantly falling, until now he was safely at port at single anchor. He had kissed Sophie's miniature and set it on his dresser, had cut off his long sailor's braid, and had started his plans for an observatory next to the house, for he had never lost his abiding love of the stars and heavens. With the help of some local hands, he had completed the little building before Stephen returned, and Stephen had found him there, watching Venus rise.

Jack had intended to give the braid to Fanny's children -- they could make some children's game out of it, perhaps use it as an ass's tail -- but Stephen had found it and kept it. And gradually, after Stephen's visits became longer and longer, they both perceived that Stephen had moved into Milport House, and they sent to the Savoy for the rest of Stephen's belongings. It was quite natural, quite unremarkable. They had been together for so many years that it was hard to believe that they had not kept house together since before Jack's marriage.

George's laughter stirred Jack from his memories. "And there we were, the whole troop of us in this wretched little cottage, surrounded by the saltiest old hands you can imagine, learning how to swab the floors and beat them dry! My sisters knew how to polish the copper and brass before ever they knew how to cook and sew." He grinned down the table at Jack, and Jack smiled back, remembering Ashgrove Cottage overflowing with children and sailors.

"Naval husbands are ever so handy and neat," Henrietta put in proudly. Her cousins gave her dark looks, but the misses Fanshaw seemed duly impressed. Although perhaps not as awed by Henrietta as they appeared to be, for one of them asked George: "And do you still beat the floors dry, Lieutenant Aubrey?" sending George into a rolling, jolly laugh.

The dinner lasted far too late, and George insisted they stay at Woolcombe after the parson, Cunningham and the misses Fanshaw had left. Henrietta's cousins were to stay several days, the poor things. Jack was glad of the invitation, for he was very weary -- had not quite recovered from Fanny's boisterous children yet -- and Stephen did not seem too inconvenienced. And then the servant had shown them to separate rooms, quite apart from each other. Yes, yes, Jack thought, of course it was separate rooms. It was quite amazing how they forgot such things, how odd life seemed outside of their little home. He sat on the bed alone and remembered the daguerréotype and pulled it from his pocket-book. He lay in bed and held it and touched Stephen's tiny, rather austere face before finally going to sleep.

In the coach the next day, Stephen said, "Your attention wandered at dinner, my dear. It was noticed."

Jack did not reply, and Stephen repeated his observation in a louder voice. Unnecessary, since he was on the side of the good ear. But Stephen was quite aware of this, and usually indulged Jack in his convenient lapses of deafness.

"Oh, ah, I am sorry for it," Jack said. "I suppose Henrietta was displeased."

"She was," said Stephen. "She asked me this morning if something might be done for the poor admiral."

Jack sighed. "She is a mean little thing. Poor George. I know I should love her, but she is such a silly girl. Not at all like Sophie. Nor Diana, for that matter."

"We were very lucky in our wives," said Stephen quietly, without the sadness Jack would once have expected to hear. Jack smiled softly and agreed. He pulled the glass plate out and unwrapped it, suffered Stephen's chatisement for bringing it with him, and the two of them beheld the wondrous thing together, with Stephen telling him again, in great detail, how the wonder was made.

"You do not look so very old in it, I find," said Jack. "You don't look so bald, and your whiskers look darker."

"I am not bald," said Stephen, running a hand over his head and its circle of thin grey hairs. "And I am no more older than you, Aubrey. Somewhat younger, I should say: in purely physical terms, given how a lifetime of wanton indulgence and a violent career has hastened the ravages of time upon your body. I meant to mention it earlier, but you should not have taken a single bite of that cream pudding last night, no indeed. You are not the man of unwavering constitution that you once were, my love. Another cream pudding and you will surely die of an apoplexy."

Jack, who had been hearing for the last forty years that he would die of an apoplexy, ignored this with silent good humour, for they were almost at Milport. The afternoon was bright and warm and wet after a spring rain, and they walked around the pond together while Mrs Stannage from the village, the widow of a former shipmate of Jack's, made their dinner.

Jack watched Stephen walking tall and determined through the high grass. No, Stephen was not so very old; he could not be, for he was so unchanged. Perhaps his eyes did not see so well now, and he needed double-glassed spectacles to read the letters he did not want Jack to read aloud to him. Perhaps his hair was thinner now, and fine, and a light slate grey. Perhaps his fingers curved somewhat at the joints, no doubt the lasting effect of the horrible torture he had suffered so many years ago. Perhaps his skin had lost some of its softness, and his lips did not curve quite so sensually as they once had. None of it mattered. He was still Stephen, his very own, unchanged in spirit and wit.

After dinner, they sat in the great parlour, and Stephen read his letter from Christine Wood -- a fine, dashingly clever woman whom Jack had once hoped would accept Stephen's offer of marriage -- while Jack smoked a pipe: a habit he had picked up only recently after he had found the taste of the cigar too bitter. It was a clear night and Jack went out to the observatory to stare through his fine glass and watch the stars rise.

When he came inside, the house was quiet, Padeen had retired to his little cottage between the house and the stable, and Stephen had left a candle burning. Jack took it upstairs, undressed and put on his nightgown, blew out the candle and slid into bed next to Stephen. Stephen stirred sleepily and shifted until they held each other comfortably. He stroked Jack's hair, and Jack closed his eyes and thought perhaps they had never changed while the world was changing around him -- so many changes, it was too difficult to comprehend -- because their love had never changed. Lying in Stephen's arms, Jack thought they might be back on ship together, after an evening of music. Stephen read his thoughts, kissed his brow, and murmured, "It will not take so very long to reach the Argentine, from what you've told me about these modern fast ships." Jack smiled softly and kissed Stephen's breast. From downstairs the ship's clock chimed two bells. They fell asleep in each other's arms, sailing together in dreams.

(the end)


End file.
